


Stories of the Second Self: The Final Accounting

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [193]
Category: Urban Fantasy - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:22:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26142541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: A priest and practicing bokor, Elijah LeBlanc was also a man of the world. He strode the streets of the Ninth Ward as though he were its king. However, the tale of his rise would be revisited upon him in a reunion he thought could never happen. A judgment reaching out from the other side of life's veil.
Series: Alter Idem [193]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: The Final Accounting

The streets of the Ninth Ward were a bit less active, even by the standards of the late hour, when Elijah LeBlanc and his bodyguards walked it. He passed by several homeless and destitute people without care, though Elijah should've taken more care himself in noting the faces of those homeless. A few stood up and started following Elijah's group.

When the foot traffic grew loud enough one of the bodyguards turned and spoke, "Papa LeBlanc."

Elijah turned to see, and still jovial, addressed the ragged group. "Ah, come to pay respect to ole Papa LeBlanc, eh. I'll offer you the blessings of the spirits if you but gather 'round."

Instead, they rushed him.

Others charged in from behind, and before Elijah knew it he and his bodyguards in the middle of a thrashing mob of humanity. Pistols held by his guards went off a few times, but in the end they were beaten to death with improvised clubs. Elijah himself, roughed up but not bleeding, found himself being carried by the reeking crowd, several of whom had died and lay in the street with his guards.

The rest hastily ran Elijah down another street, and a few more after that, audibly tiring from the effort. Elijah saw glimpses of a warehouse they carried him toward. He'd been drive past it many times, and knew it to be abandoned for as long as he lived in the Ninth Ward. And yet, that's the building he was carted into.

Scuffling and scraping in the dark offered Elijah little for what his eyes couldn't see. Then, he felt himself dropped into a chair. running his hands over it, Elijah felt plain simple wooden construction. He wasn't even bound to the chair, which had him wondering what this was about.

"My dear friend, Papa Elijah LeBlanc," sounded the weak Jamaican accent, and then came the speaker's more authentic chipper light tone of a happy administrative assistant. "It's been... what, ten, twelve years? This meeting must, at the least, rather surprise you."

It was still dark, but Elijah's vision was adjusting to the gloom enough for him to realize there were holes in the roof. Before him stood hints of a beige suit. The face was cloaked in shadow, but it didn't matter. Elijah would recognize that voice anywhere.

"Papa Delane Henry?" Elijah didn't much have to feign surprise. "I... I thought you returned to the spirits. That you had moved onto the other side. I read of your funeral in the papers. Exquisite, is what they said and wrote of it. How is it that you live?"

"That's the funny part, Papa LeBlanc," Papa Henry replied as he stepped forward. "I don't live."

Elijah recoiled on finally seeing the face of his fierce rival. Once a deep brown, Papa Henry's face was visibly grayed. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes solid black. The lower half of his dreadlocks were gray, but further up a dark black had since grown in. The aging Bokor now stood as youthful and strong as Elijah recalled from old photos of the Voodoo practitioner.

"What have you done to yourself?" Elijah gasped, horrified by the deathly sight.

"I have done nothing," Papa Henry answered, waving a hand before himself and adding, "What has been done to me is a mystery I will yet solve. However, what you have done is no mystery."

"Truly, Papa Henry," Elijah wound up his apology, "I sought only to assure and guide your chapter."

"By seizing my assets and holdings?" Papa Henry doubted, and folded his arms. "You even claimed my temple and replaced my alters and shrines with your own."

"I needed to exercise my authority to assure stability," Elijah explained with desperation. "Surely, you understand. You'd have done the same."

"To those who deserve it." Papa Henry's tone turned dangerous.

"The other Bokors and Caplatas agreed that your-- ah, shall we say practices were untraditional," Elijah alluded, "I sought to act on their wishes."

"I've spoken to them," Papa Henry said, and took another step. "They didn't counsel the seizure and, when pressed, admitted to him sincerely that they had no knowledge of what you did."

Papa Henry was close enough that Elijah saw flashes of his teeth when he spoke, and remarked with horror. "What is this thing you've become?"

Though it was Papa Henry who spoke, the voice was that of a night winter's breeze through dead trees. "I am the one who has returned, and with my coming I wield the keys to death and undeath. My power is true, and it is absolute."

Scrambling to escape, Elijah tipped the chair sideways and fell. Before getting to his feed to run he felt that same horde of unwashed hands grab him and force him to his knees facing Papa Henry. However, the living dead Bokor stepped back into shadow.

Elijah heard heavy fabric and metallic clinks. Then came the sound of a single heavy chain and a heavy weight dragged ominously across the floor. What returned to his sight was a black robed figure wearing steel gauntlets and cruelly sharp iron crown.

Someone held a scabbard out with the sword handle toward Papa Henry. When he drew the weapon flame bloomed into a fiery envelop over the full length of the blade. It let Elijah see the massive morningstar in Papa Henry's left hand.

The eccentricity of Papa Henry Delane was well known in Voodoo circles of the Ninth, and considered peculiar even by the standards of other practicing Bokors and Caplatas. Though, Elijah knew of none who actually made real magic happen. For him and others, the practice was all about theatrics and belief instilled into followers.

"I claim your soul," sounded that deathly cold wind, as Papa Henry advanced with flaming sword poised. "This time it will be true."

The agony Elijah experienced, as Papa Henry started the searing vivisection, made him wish to leave his body. He screamed out every burning cut into his legs, arms, and eventually his body.

Papa Henry had mastered the craft of drawing out Elijah's death. In the end Elijah felt himself become weightless, and in looking saw his eviscerated body from the outside. His heart was clutched within a metal gauntlet and the top scotched by the burning blade held in the other.

Next, Elijah felt pulled toward a small glass jar. In it he recognized the layers of colored sand rising up to become his dwelling. Through sight distorting glass, Elijah saw a stretch of cloth wrapped around the lid with bits of his own hair tied into the knot.


End file.
